Audience feedback session one

As we have finished the first rough cut of our opening title sequence we needed to show it to an audience which will give us some constructive criticism to improve it. Below is an edited version of the footage we recorded of the audience discussing our film.

Key points of criticism 

• Some sound issues are present during the last scene. Some members of the audience pointed out that the sound and length is not correct as it drags for too long and the raw sound of the traffic could be changed.

          - To combat this we plan to change the length of the ending significantly, possibly involving               jump cuts to make it better. Additionally if we do plan on modifying the sound we could                     simply reduce the volume of the traffic.

• The reflections on the shiny map show the camera and figures which is not intended.

      There is not that much we can do about the reflection without filming. At the moment we do not         plan on refilming but we could alter the video concerning contrast to make it less obvious.

• The shape of the map points was debated as some thought that it should be more methodical however one person argued that it adds the frantic mind set of the detective. In hindsight I agree that a little more thought should have gone into it and research should have been done by myself before filming.

      Like the above point it is a critical filming issue and would require us to reconstruct the board and reshoot. Personally I agree with the person who liked the organisation of the pictures as it does indeed reflect the detective's mind.

• The titles were heavily critiqued which is something I expected as it was my first time on Final Cut Pro editing. Even though I used a typical order I made the mistake of putting 'music William Tomsett' which is not correct. Also the font of the text does not go with the opening title sequence. Lastly a small spelling error was present.

       This problem is quite easy to fix as it is a matter of editing the titles. I will let Aidan have a look and help to make the titles look better and more professional.

• The ident was also brought up and the issue of the penguin was focused on. The word 'cutise' was used on many occasions to describe the whole ident. It was argued that this did not fit the sequence as it directly contrasted key themes.  

Points of praise 

• The fact that we deliberately made sure the subject's face is not on show appealed to the audience as it created mystery and helped to build tension.
• The shots across the map were pointed out to be particularly effective and this is mainly due to the editing and the post effects added to the film.
• An audience member mentioned the mood which they thought was very well established.